A Nonsymbiotic Relationship

Cats like houseplants, but houseplants don’t particularly like cats. Or, at least, cats don’t do houseplants any good.

Take my ponytail palm, for example. My cat is an outdoor cat, but I know if she came indoors, what a grand time she’d have jabbing her claws playfully at the ends of the ponytail palm’s wispy leaves. She’d do the same for my orchid’s flower stalk, now weighed down with a row of delicate blooms. Either plant would emerge from such play worn and frayed.

There’s not much you can do once a plant catches your cat’s fancy, except maybe get some mice for greater feline entertainment. A catnip stuffed toy or a few stems of hardy kiwiplant — another of cat’s favorites — might also do the trick. Or not.

Ponytail palm

Nonlitterboxes and Litterboxes

The plants themselves are not the only outlet for cats’ horticultural troublemaking; flowerpots filled with potting soil, especially fresh potting soil, make attractive litterboxes. A lot more natural than kitty litter, any kitty would no doubt think.

Besides being offensive to us humans, a cat using a pot of soil as a litter box isn’t good for the plant growing in that pot. Horse or other manure is great stuff outside in the garden, but a single cat working over a pot of soil . . . well, that’s just too strong a shot of nutrients for one plant. So much, in fact, that the plant’s roots will get burnt, perhaps even to the point of killing the plant.

All sorts of tricks have been devised by humans for keeping cats from using flowerpots as litterboxes. Poking toothpicks vertically into the soil or spreading thorny stems, stones, or seashells over the soil surface is sometimes effective. A barrier of wire mesh is one hundred percent effective, as are barriers of plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Of course, these barriers are unattractive, and plastic or aluminum ones would have to be pushed aside for each watering.

Sometimes — just sometimes — temporarily diverting a cat can get it permanently out of the habit of playing with a particular plant or using a flowerpot as a litterbox. One key, of course, is to provide other diversions, as well as romps outdoors or a nice litterbox indoors.

Bad For Cats, Too

Just because cats enjoy playing with your houseplants doesn’t mean that the plants are good for them. Part of that frolicking, after all, involves chewing on, perhaps even eating, some greenery.

This is natural: cats, although carnivorous, do get to eat greenery outdoors on the hoof, either as is or within the intestines of the animals that they eat. Cat’s grazing on plants might reflect an instinctual need to make up for some vitamins or minerals that might be lacking in their diet.

But faced with a limited diversity of indoor greenery, a housebound cat might be driven to eat greenery that’s not wholesome. Cat’s livers are relatively poor in dealing with toxins, to the extent that some houseplants have been known to cause feline deaths. The most serious offenders are lilies, true lilies (not daylilies) such as Easter lilies. Also, and common this time of year, sprigs of mistletoe.

Other common houseplants that might cause illness, or worse, in cats include dumbcane (dieffenbachia), philodendron, asparagus fern, cyclamen. and dracaena.

Philodendron

Poinsettia, incidentally, has been exonerated as a culprit in poisoning either humans or cats.

If you suspect that a plant has poisoned your cat, call your vet or the ASPCA National Animal Poison Control Center at (888)426-4435.

And “Everybody’s Happy

Providing appealing and healthful greenery indoors might be a workable alternative to getting rid of plants unhealthful to a cat (or getting rid of the cat). Grown indoors, a pot of catnip is not much to look at, but a housebound cat would surely appreciate it. Other plants that might offer wholesome nibbles include dwarf marigolds or zinnias.

For something to satisfy both any gardener’s aesthetic and a cat’s palate, how about a pot or a flat of grass? Yes grass! Some fine-leaved sort such as Kentucky bluegrass or fine fescue, or something coarser, a grain such as oats or rye. Any grass or grain, in fact. It’s cheap, it’s quick and easy to grow. And you can sow it anytime of year.

Sprinkle the seeds fairly thickly — no need for precision here — on the surface of firmed potting soil in a container or seedling flat, cover with an additional quarter inch of potting soil, firm and water. Once seeds sprout, move the flat or container to a sunny window and let it grow a couple of inches tall before letting Miss Kitty get at it. Your feline friend can help you with mowing as he or she takes an occasional chew on it.